The team dedicated to enhancing diversity at the University of Toledo’s engineering school on Friday celebrated an additional way to extend and continue its services.
Michael Toole, dean of the University of Toledo college of engineering, thanked Toledo-based architectural firm SSOE and its CEO Vince DiPofi, as well as his wife, Sandy, for gifting the university with the new SSOE/DiPofi Family Office of Student Success, Opportunity, and Engagement. A grand opening ceremony occurred in Nitschke Hall.
The SSOE/DiPofi Family Office, which is on the first floor of Nitschke Hall, features a lounging space for pre-engineering students attending the university as well as office space for Lesley Berhan, associate dean for diversity, inclusion and community engagement, and Bryan Bosch, a manager for the office for diversity, inclusion, and engagement.
The gift from the firm also includes funding to support the salaries of Ms. Berhan and Mr. Bosch, career coaches for the engineering students, and funding for scholarships, Mr. DiPofi said at the ribbon cutting.
He said he wouldn’t disclose how much the project cost.
The new office gives pre-engineering students who are transitioning into their major a “homebase” to study and socialize with other students who are doing the same, Ms. Berhan said.
Before the new office was built, she said, pre-engineering students didn’t have a space to gather with other pre-engineering students.
“It kind of helps give them that sense of belonging, that identity,” Ms. Berhan said. “Mechanical engineering has a lounge, chemical engineering has a lounge, but these students aren’t in the major yet. Those students are also in classes that Bryan and I teach so it’s kind of nice because if they want to come see us then they can just hang out here, do the work, and come and ask questions.”
Conversations for the new space resulted from routine lunches and dinners between Mr. DiPofi and Mr. Toole two and a half years ago, Mr. Toole said.
“We talked about the needs of [the college],” Mr. Toole said. “We talked about where his organization was evolving, where I was trying to get this college to evolve, and we came together.”
Though the school of engineering already had an office dedicated to diversity and inclusion, the dean of engineering said, its staff was never housed under one roof.
“There was [Ms. Berhan’s] office and then Bryan Bosch, his office was over in Palmer [Hall],” he said.
Mr. DiPofi said three partnerships are behind the university’s new office such as the relationship between the university and SSOE, which spans across seven decades, the relationship between the DiPofi family and the college, with several of his family members attending UT, and the relationship between himself and the university.
“Since it’s been publicized in the last week, I’ve had a lot of people say, ‘Vince, thanks for giving back to the community,’” Mr. DiPofi said. “I don’t look at this as giving back, a lot of this is giving forward. That’s what this particular gift is about. It’s about looking forward and giving forward to help future success and students that perhaps have not been able to that success, certainly in engineering.”
First Published October 20, 2023, 9:37 p.m.
